Latham wants to ‘take positives’ from Dubai loss

ABU DHABI - Tom Latham has urged his New Zealand team-mates to take the positives out of the innings-defeat in the second Test against Pakistan, and develop plans to counter Yasir Shah in the series-decider in Abu Dhabi.

New Zealand were blown away by Yasir Shah, who took 10 wickets in a day and 14 in the match to roll over the visitors for 90 and 312, when asked to follow on, in reply to Pakistan’s first-innings total of 418/5 declared.

However, Latham’s second-innings effort was one of the few positives for New Zealand. He, along with Ross Taylor and Henry Nicholls, hit half-centuries, and though they couldn’t prevent an innings defeat, they did take New Zealand past 300.

“Even though we didn’t win the Test, we got to take positives out of that,” Latham said ahead of the final match in Abu Dhabi, beginning tomorrow (Monday). “We did tick over 300 on that surface and that was really important. If we can take that into the last Test, possibly batting last and getting 300-plus, we will give ourselves a good chance.”

The visitors are now back to familiar environs where only two weeks ago, they had registered a thrilling four-run victory to take a 1-0 lead in the series. Latham recalled the memories from that Test, which has given New Zealand a chance of for an unprecedented series win in the United Arab Emirates. “We have great memories from a couple of weeks ago when we won a great game,” Latham recalled.

“Even though in that Test match we didn’t play our best cricket, we managed to get across the line and that’s really important. We are always striving for the perfect match, but if we can put pieces of the puzzle together in each department, we can hopefully give ourselves a chance of winning that series.”

However, to do that, New Zealand will have to counter Shah. “(We have to) come up with a plan on how to play Yasir Shah and Hasan Ali,” Latham said.

“They have probably been the two from the bowling point of view, and from our bowling point of view, how to get these guys out in a few days. These are very good conditions and they put a hard price on their wicket. Hopefully, we can formulate those plans and stick to them for long periods of time, and hopefully the guys can bat long periods to put numbers on the board.”